Post Battle is the Best
by kiwibliss
Summary: Some Shrios here Shepard/Krios, because every pairing needs a one word mashup . Sometimes big battles inspire certain feelings, as even a Salarian knows. Some mild foul language. Rated M for romantic entanglements. FemShep/Thane


She strode through the halls of the Normandy, bloody, sweaty and ebullient. They had kicked the Collector's asses back beyond deep space, without any personal losses. Everyone wanted to talk to her as she made her way slowly through each level and she spent a moment with each one, settling him or her in as well as they could manage. Shepard desperately needed a shower and a moment to think, but she was still coasting on an adrenaline rush and she recognized that she had to use this time wisely before she crashed, hard.

Mordin cornered her on the Command Deck, just after she'd shot off a quick e-mail to Anderson. "Shepard. Good I found you!" He was ecstatic as well, talking faster than normal, which was pretty amazing. "Excellent job on the ship. Showed superior leadership skills. I'm proud."

"Thanks, Mordin. I couldn't have done this without you." She couldn't help but grin at the Salarian. "I really need a shower though, talk later?" Dammit, she was starting to sound like him.

He touched her arm, pulling it toward him and depositing two green pills in her hand. "Take these after showering. Will prevent rash. You'll need them later."

"Rash? I, what are you on about Mordin?"

The Salarian tilted his head at her, giving her a smirk that looked absolutely adorable. "The Drell, Thane. I told you about rash, fluids causing hallucinations. You remember?"

Shepard shook her head and laughed. "Mordin, I'm going to take a shower and pass out for a few days. I'm bone tired."

"Sex after life threatening battle is common response in most species. Drell and human included. Can't fight nature, Shepard." Mordin was actually grinning at her now, enjoying himself immensely.

"If you insist." She gave up the fight; it was completely pointless to argue right now. She closed her hand over the pills and waved it at him. "I'll pop these right after my shower, Mordin."

"Sooner is better, Shepard." He gave her a wink that she could have sworn was almost lascivious and disappeared through the sliding doors to his lab.

Her cabin was cool and dry when she reached it a few minutes later. She checked the fish and fed them before doing anything else, as was her habit. The space hamster also looked to be okay, running his furry butt around the wheel in his cage. Her armor was off in record time and chucked into the cleaning bin under EDI's panel. She called up the AI while she was thinking of it.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Hold all messages and requests for the next six hours. Also, keep everyone out of my cabin." She thought about her conversation with Mordin. "Except Thane. He's allowed entry. No one else."

"Done, Commander." EDI flickered out and left Shepard in the blissful near silence of her empty cabin. A moment later and she was basking in the soothing heat of her high pressure shower, dirt and Collector blood sluicing off her skin to flow down the drain at her feet. She finished off the shower with citrus scented oil. It had been a long time since she'd smelled like anything but guns and the sharp metal of her armor plating and she felt positively decadent. Slipping on a silk robe to cover her nudity, she grabbed the pills off the sink shelf and popped them into her mouth, half hoping they were actually a sedative so she could get some sleep.

Now clean, and still buzzing with endorphins, Shepard looked at her desk shelves, eyeing the space hamster rattling around in his cage. Too noisy, she decided. Picking it up, she carried the cage out her cabin door and put him on the ground in front of the elevator. "EDI?" She called over her shoulder.

"Yes, Commander."

"Have someone come up and retrieve the space hamster. It's to the right of the elevator doors in front of my cabin." She thought for a second. "Have them bring it to Tali down in Engineering." Tali would love a pet hamster, Shepard thought. It didn't really make sense overall, but to her currently addled mind it was a work of genius.

"I'll have someone take care of that, Commander. Logging you out."

The elevator doors opened as she turned to re-enter her cabin, and she looked back over her shoulder to catch the confused look on Thane's face as he stepped out. "Your hamster appears to be on the floor." He inclined his head in the general direction of the hamster, quirking an eyebrow ridge quizzically at her. His hands were behind his back in his familiar stance and he looked as composed as ever.

Shepard nodded. "I'm giving it to Tali."

His quizzical look softened and his eyes traveled over her, taking her in. "You are barely dressed, siha."

"I just took a shower. Moving the hamster was an impulsive thing… I wasn't planning on leaving this floor dressed…"

He was in front of her before she could finish the sentence, an arm wrapped tightly around her waist and one finger over her lips, silencing her. "You misunderstand me. I find this outfit…. quite visually pleasing."

Damn but he's fast, she thought. She took his hand and kissed the palm, gently, twining her fingers in his and pulling him through the door to her cabin. "Did you come all the way up here to compliment my taste in clothing?" Her voice was low and she almost sounded like she was purring. No man had ever elicited a purr from her before; then again, she found herself doing things around Thane that she didn't normally do.

He bent his head toward her ear, brushing his lips against it as he spoke. "I needed to touch you, siha. Sometimes my perfect memory doesn't suffice." He inhaled deeply. "You smell lovely. So familiar…"

His breath on her ear was sending pleasant little shivers up her spine. "Lemon. It's a fruit, originally grown back on Earth." Her free hand stroked the red ridges on the side of his face and he sighed as he lifted his face to rest his forehead against hers. The line between his lips drew her attention and she stroked it with her thumb.

Several things happened quickly then; his lips were on hers, his hands slid down the sides of her hips to hook her under the top of her thighs, lifting her and carrying her back to her desk. He placed her gently on it, never breaking the kiss. His tongue tasted like cinnamon to her, sharp and sweet, yet tingly. "Wow." She said, reluctantly breaking the kiss. "I'm glad I moved the hamster."

He chuckled softly, leaning down and fluttering his tongue down her neck. She'd encountered the fluttering in a holo in the latest issue of Fornax, gifted to her by her ever-sensitive Turian teammate. Drell had tongues very similar to humans, but slightly longer and a bit flatter, which made them capable of flicking across a surface, much like a lizard tongue. The woman in the human on Drell scene that she watched had appeared to enjoy it very much and she was beginning to understand why. It was like having hundreds of little tongues caress her skin instead of just one.

Meanwhile Shepard was desperately trying to remember the various Drell erogenous zones from the vids that Mordin had sent her. Some were quite explicit; she wondered how someone so disinterested in sex could have such extensive knowledge of extranet fetish sites.

Thane's hands moved from her hips to the tie at her waist, undoing the loose knot with a flick of his wrist. "You should dress like this more often, siha."

"Oh, ho, ho. So the gentlemanly demeanor is just an act." Shepard was busily trying to push the jacket off his shoulders as she spoke, but it appeared to be attached somewhere that she hadn't yet found. He'd slipped it off so easily the previous night, before they'd been so rudely interrupted by Joker's announcement that they were _'Approaching the Omega 4 Relay in 20 minutes, Commander'_. She still owed him for that, now that she thought about it. Thane reached behind his collar and did something, and the jacket slid off his arms and onto the floor. "How the hell do you do that?" She murmured, running her hands down well-muscled arms.

"Trade secret." He gave her the smallest smile, before parting her robe. His hands were pleasantly rough on her skin as he slid the silk down her shoulders. They traced a trail from her collarbone to her breasts, lingering there for a moment. _'Breasts are probably new for him, would be funny if two lumps of flesh threw off the galaxy's greatest assassin.'_ That thought and all others fled her mind when he dipped he head and started fluttering again. In sensitive areas, the fluttering was mind-boggling. Her mouth produced something that sounded like a bastard hybrid of a moan and a groan, her fingers scratching at his shoulders and neck in what she hoped was an encouraging manner.

He spent several long minutes that way; fluttering, sucking, licking, probably committing all favorable reactions to his perfect memory for further use. A pleasant ache was starting to build in Shepard. She tried halfheartedly to bring his head up to hers, but he had other ideas, tracing a slippery trail down her abdomen with his tongue. _'He watched Mordin's videos!'_ was the last rational thought to pass through her mind as he reached the juncture of her thighs, his mouth unerringly seeking out that sensitive little bud that was the center of all female sexual experience.

The fluttering there caused her to see stars; entire galaxies floated before her eyes as she lay back against the wall, too overwhelmed with feeling to sit upright anymore. Her hips were practically thrashing in unison with the stroking of his tongue, but his strong hands on the tops of her thighs kept her in place on the desk. The ache had spread through her, like heat rolling through her limbs. Her cries were incoherent at best, his name repeated frequently. The climax hit her like a heavy warp and she stiffened, and then fell limp against the wall, her hands to heavy to lift from their spot on his shoulders.

Thane stood, gathering her into his arms. She lay against his chest and traced the deep green flecks in his skin with a hand that was still reluctant to cooperate properly. "That was the best orgasm of my entire thirty-one years." She inclined her head up to look at him and saw that he was wearing a small, satisfied smile. _'Good on him.'_, she thought, _'He sure as hell deserves it after that'_. He laid her on the bed on her side, curling around behind her and nuzzling his face into the curve of her neck. She sighed with satisfaction and burrowed as deeply into his arms as she could. "I just need a minute to recover."

"You have as long as you need, siha. I am content to just lay her with you." She loved how she could feel his voice as well as hear it when pressed this close to him. It rumbled through his chest and into her back, causing her nerve endings to quiver. It was almost like he was part back massager, and she wondered if he could keep that vibration up for a period of time, and if all of him vibrated just like his chest did. Those thoughts were doing some interesting things to her, including starting up that dull aching again. She could feel him behind her; pressing against her bare bottom through his leather pants, and knew that he was feeling his own aching. That simply wouldn't do.

She turned in his arms and brought her lips to his, tracing the line with her tongue as her hands moved down the sculpted muscle of his chest to the tight leather pants that were currently the only things between them and skin to skin contact. Unfortunately, despite her fumblings, she couldn't manage to find a hook or zipper to open the damned things, though she was doing a fine job of fondling the length of him through his pants. His breathing slightly labored, he put his hands on hers and guided her to the hidden flap at the side, which covered a zipper that ran the length of the triangular front piece. So, after all of this, she knew how to take off exactly one of his pieces of clothing, though the pants were the most important part.

Her hands pushed impatiently at the sides of his pants until he helped her, pulling them down over his hips. Shepard took him in her hand then, eager to confirm all of the rumors as well as the vids that she'd watched about this portion of the Drell male anatomy. The skin was softer here, less scaled, which made perfect sense from a biological standpoint. And the skin was ridged. "Damn you, Jack, you were right."

She hadn't realized that she'd spoken this thought aloud until he growled into her ear, his voice thrumming through her. "Right about what?"

"I'll tell you later." She brushed him off because now she was fascinated by him, rubbing her hand up and down the shaft to feel how the ridges gave slightly under the pressure of her grip. It was a tantalizing design and she wanted to kiss whoever had come up with that particular mutated trait first.

He was breathing harder with each stroke; she could feel the heat of it blowing over her ear. His words came out in the form of a moan, which she found deeply arousing. "Siha, if you continue like this I won't be able to control myself. It has been a very long time since I've been touched like this." She moved underneath him, still holding him in her hand and settled with his hips poised over hers. "Are you sure, siha?"

Tilting her hips slightly, she guided him into her; shuddering as the ridges slid over sensitive spots she was not accustomed to stimulating. "Slowly." She murmured, kissing him softly and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I want us both to enjoy this thoroughly."

His smile was sweet and she wondered for the thousandth time how such dark eyes could convey emotion so readily. "I would not have it any other way, siha." He established the pacing, slow and rhythmic. She kissed the underside of his neck, where the hyoid bone resided, and was pleased to see his throat inflate a bit, presumably a positive reaction. Thane's hands tangled in her short hair, scratching her scalp as they clenched and unclenched in time with the motion of his hips against hers.

Hooking her legs around his hips she drew him deeper, increasing the speed of their rhythm. There was a white heat building in her pelvis, starting in a spot right underneath her abdomen, the ridges rubbing back and forth over it intensifying the feeling. She could feel herself clenching around him, the spasms of her muscles growing stronger and closer together. The pace was so quick now; their hips smacked together like the pounding of the bass in Afterlife. Suddenly she tightened hard, voicing a guttural cry against his shoulder. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. Her body flew apart into atoms that drifted through the walls of the ship and out into the galaxy, like a supernova of a dying star. She heard his answering cry in the form of her name; not siha, but her actual name, and clung to him as he shuddered above her, stroking the crests of his head as he rested on her shoulder.

They lay that way for several moments, unmoving. When he rolled onto this back he moved her with him, cradling her against his chest. He pulled the covers over them haphazardly, as they were still lying on top of a portion of them. Shepard didn't care; she was thoroughly sated and lying in the arms of a man that she was 99.999999% sure that she loved for the first time in nearly a decade. She could hear the ocean waves as they floated in the sea. It was warm and beautiful and the Hanar that floated around them were graceful and colorful beneath the ocean waves. Closing her eyes, she drifted off into the serenity of sleep.


End file.
